Scripting Success

When an independent research group recently examined studies of 24
"whole school" reform models, its findings contained two surprises.

‘Direct Instruction is not for all children ... or for all
teachers or schools,’ concluded one review.

The first: Only three programs were found to improve student
achievement. And the second: Direct Instruction, a long-scorned,
lock-step approach to learning, was one of those that made the
grade.

Although reformers who didn't make the short list blasted the
findings of the Washington, D.C.-based American Institutes for
Research, the kudos from the group pushed Direct Instruction, a fringe
reform strategy, into the national spotlight.

Developed in the 1960s by then-University of Illinois professor
Siegfried Engelmann, Direct Instruction is a basic-skills approach to
learning rooted in Engelmann's own research on the teaching of reading.
In its first incarnation, the program was a K-3 reading and mathematics
curriculum known as DISTAR, short for Direct Instructional System for
Teaching and Remediation. That early program has since expanded to
include grades preK-6 and subjects such as social studies, science,
writing, and spelling.

Though thousands of schools buy Direct Instruction's commercially
produced materials for use in remedial and special education, it's
never been accepted as a mainstream program. Today only about 150
schools across the country use it with all their students. "We were
sort of like the plague for regular education," says Engelmann, now 67
and a professor at the University of Oregon. "Regular education would
have nothing to do with us."

Part of this disdain for Direct Instruction stems from its rigidly
sequenced, scripted lessons. Critics often deride the program as
"teacher proof" because it requires little expertise or knowledge to
teach using its prepared materials.

But Engelmann believes that students learn best when instruction is
so structured and clear that misinterpretation is impossible. He and
his colleagues have devoted years of study to pinpointing how to keep
students on track in lessons. Some 30 experiments alone, Engelmann
estimates, have honed the pacing of the program's lessons.

In numerous head-to-head comparisons over the years with other
classroom approaches, Direct Instruction has been the winner. The
largest of those evaluations was a $59 million, eight-year study two
decades ago that compared 20 different programs used in the federal
Follow Through initiative, a massive educational effort launched as
part of President Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty. Researchers
concluded that Direct Instruction produced the biggest gains in
students' basic skills and thinking abilities. It also did the most to
boost kids' self-esteem. Other, smaller studies suggest the program
improves students' chances of graduating from high school and attending
college.

This track record landed Direct Instruction on the honor role of
reform models released by the American Institutes for Research. Of the
14 studies of Direct Instruction that met the group's standards for
scientific rigor, seven found gains in reading, nine in language, and
11 in mathematics. After a similar review last year, the American
Federation of Teachers pointed to Direct Instruction as one of six
schoolwide programs that shows promise in raising achievement.

And the program also made its way onto a list of research-backed
models that schools can adopt to qualify for a share of $150 million in
new federal grants.

Such acclaim hasn't muted Direct Instruction's critics. In fact,
some have become more vocal, deriding glowing studies of the program or
digging up other, less-favorable research. Lawrence Schweinhart,
research-division chairman for the High/Scope Educational Foundation,
dismisses the influential Follow Through study as "big and messy."
Schweinhart points instead to work he and a colleague conducted that
raises questions about Direct Instruction's long-term effects on kids'
social skills. For that study, the two researchers tracked groups of
poor children who had been randomly assigned to one of three different
types of preschool classrooms: a Direct Instruction program, a
traditional nursery school program, and a program developed by
High/Scope in which children plan and carry out their own learning
activities.

Though preschoolers in the Direct Instruction classes gained the
most academic ground in the study, they didn't fare nearly as well
socially. By age 15, 46 percent had been identified as having emotional
problems-a significantly higher percentage than in either of the other
two programs. Former Direct Instruction preschoolers were also more
likely to run afoul of the law.

Schweinhart points to the program's rigid, authoritarian structure
as a possible source of such problems. "I don't think there is any
question that Direct Instruction is a great way to improve school
achievement if that were the only goal in the world," he says. "But it
isn't our only goal."

Engelmann scoffs at Schweinhart's findings. With only 68 student
participants, the study was far too small to produce reliable results,
he says.

Still, other Engelmann critics complain that many of the studies
touting Direct Instruction's success were conducted by researchers
associated with the program. Similar charges have been leveled at
Success for All, a popular reform model founded by Johns Hopkins
University researcher Robert Slavin. Slavin, who favorably reviewed
Direct Instruction in a book he co-wrote last year, says the criticism
could be a red herring. A program might be considered suspect, Slavin
says, if it can count only four independent studies of its
effectiveness from among 20 different reviews.

"But if all four are positive," he adds, "that's impressive."

Then there are the critics who contend that Direct Instruction is
getting good reviews because it's one of the few programs that's been
around long enough to have a track record. "To have proven programs,
you have to have old programs," notes Richard Allington, chairman of
the reading department at the State University of New York at Albany.
"Most of these Direct Instruction programs have been around 25 or 26
years, which is why there's more research on them." If Direct
Instruction looks good, Allington and others say, it may be because
there is a dearth of effectiveness data on anything else.

Arundel Elementary is one of 18 schools in Baltimore that use Direct
Instruction with support from a local nonprofit group. The school,
which serves students from the surrounding housing projects and
run-down apartment buildings, adopted the program several years ago to
give its largely poor, minority enrollment an academic leg up.

Three years after embracing Direct Instruction, one low-income
school in Baltimore is beginning to show across-the-board
improvement in test results.

Today, students in Matthew Carpenter's 6th grade class are working
on reasoning and writing skills. Their task of the moment is to listen
to two sentences and then transform them into a new one that begins
with the word "no" and uses the word "only."

"The wolves howled and ate at night," Carpenter reads aloud from his
Direct Instruction script. "The wolves did not eat." The 14 youngsters
bend over their papers, writing the answer as their teacher walks
around, checking their work. Satisfied that the youngsters have it
right, Carpenter says, "The answer is..."

The students shout out in unison. "No, the wolves only howled at
night."

Like many recent education school graduates, Carpenter never heard
of Direct Instruction during his years of study. But the second-year
teacher was a quick convert. He says the program's tight structure has
helped him and the disadvantaged students he teaches in an advanced
course. "I like the structure," he says. "I think it's good for this
group of kids."

Later in the class, Carpenter moves to another task in his students'
language arts textbook: identifying the parts of speech in a series of
sentences. Carpenter reads the first aloud: "That last statement is
very misleading," then, scanning his script, asks, "What's the noun in
the subject?" He snaps his fingers, and the students shout,
"Statement!"

"What's the verb, everyone?" Fingers snap, and the students shout,
"Is!"

"Good job," the teacher replies.

Except for one hour-long period, Carpenter uses Direct Instruction
all day. And all his colleagues at the school do the same.

Three years after embracing Direct Instruction, Arundel is beginning
to show across-the-board improvement in test results. This spring, the
school's 1st and 3rd graders posted some of the biggest gains in the
city on the Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills. At nearby City Springs
Elementary, the program is credited with a much-publicized turnaround.
Once considered one of the worst schools in Baltimore, City Springs now
has orderly classrooms and higher test scores.

"I think the better order comes because kids are more engaged in
what they are doing," says Muriel Berkeley, director of the Baltimore
Curriculum Project, the nonprofit group supporting Direct Instruction
in the city. "We make a lot of assumptions in education. A child looks
bright or a child knows how to read, but we don't consider that the
child may have some missing skills. What Direct Instruction gives you
is a vertebrae-a backbone-to make sure you haven't skipped any
skills."

To keep lessons moving quickly and efficiently, Direct Instruction
schools group students by ability. Still, as Carpenter's class
illustrates, this can pose problems. Students sometimes jump ahead of
the teacher in their books, moving to new material before he can read
aloud the scripted questions and prompts. Today, after Carpenter tries
to hold them back during a math lesson, one student complains: "We
already know this stuff."

Though teachers may be tempted to let students work at their own
pace, Engelmann says that won't work. Because each skill builds on
another, even the most agile students need to stick with the lessons,
he says. Pacing and repetition are part of the game plan. Students do
not really master a skill until they repeat it again and again in
different contexts.

Conducting lessons properly, program proponents admit, can be
tiring. Teachers must be "on" all day long. "It's like actors in a
play," Berkeley explains. "We don't ask the actor to write the play,
but he interprets the play and presents it."

Engelmann estimates that it takes most teachers about two years to
nail down the approach and delivery. Official training begins with a
week of inservice. Then, Direct Instruction coaches visit classrooms
monthly. Unlike other kinds of trainers, these coaches don't hang back
and take notes. They jump in when they see a potential problem-a tactic
that rubs some teachers the wrong way. "It's like they undermine you in
front of your students," says James Sarath, another 6th grade teacher
at Arundel.

Engelmann hopes that several studies and teacher surveys now in the
works will answer concerns about the program. Still, it's hard to
imagine that Direct Instruction will ever be widely embraced, even with
the recent endorsements. When Arundel Elementary adopted the program in
1996- 97, several teachers wanted nothing to do with it and transferred
to other schools.

"Direct Instruction is not for all children under all circumstances
or for all teachers or schools," concluded a review of the program by
the Denver-based Education Commission of the States.

Slavin of Johns Hopkins puts it this way: "Research or no research,
many schools would say it's just not a program that fits with their
philosophy."

--Debra Viadero

Vol. 11, Issue 2, Pages 20-22

Published in Print: October 1, 1999, as Scripting Success

Related Stories

Direct Instruction is one of the reform programs mentioned in the
story, "Who's In, Who's Out," Jan.
20, 1999.

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